


Zebras not horses.

by loisselina (LoisSelina)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Daddy Charming, Doctor Appointment, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Physical Disability, fibromyalgia, hypermobility, mama Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 16:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14139729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoisSelina/pseuds/loisselina
Summary: For the prompt “This can’t go on like this! You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, you barely talk!” for Justanoutlaw. Snow and David think Emma might be depressed but they find something out it's something a whole lot different instead.





	Zebras not horses.

**Author's Note:**

> '“When you hear the sound of hooves, think horses, not zebras.”
> 
> This phrase is taught to medical students throughout their training.
> 
> In medicine, the term “zebra” is used in reference to a rare disease or condition. Doctors are taught to assume that the simplest explanation is usually correct to avoid patients being misdiagnosed with rare illnesses. Doctors learn to expect common conditions.
> 
> But many medical professionals seem to forget that “zebras” DO exist and so getting a diagnosis and treatment can be more difficult for sufferers of rare conditions. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is considered a rare condition and so EDS sufferers are known as medical zebras.'  
> -Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Support UK.
> 
>  
> 
> For the prompt - “This can’t go on like this! You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, you barely talk!” from Justanoutlaw

 

David and Snow were at a loss for what to do.

Two months since they had failed to bring Hook back and at first they thought that Emma was working through it well, she had talked to them and Archie about it, she had realised she had barely known the man and that she had mostly been looking at him as an opportunity to have a happy ending (as had he) but that that just wasn’t how things worked. She worked through her feelings of guilt for putting the dark curse on him, and guilt over being so blind as to give him countless chances despite him not trying to redeem himself and instead tried to kill her family a few times, she had grieved and moved on.

But suddenly she seemed to be going backwards.

Four months after she had started to devolve and Snow and David weren’t sure what to do anymore. They had tried to talk to her, Snow and David had tried to talk to her and to Archie because they were fairly certain she was showing the signs of depression, but Emma insisted she wasn’t depressed and that she was fine. Now between worrying about Emma and trying to look after her and get her to eat and drink at the very least, and Neal having been teething on and off for month, they were exhausted and had no idea what to do.

 

* * *

 

 

David was awake and worrying at four in the morning when he heard a loud bang from Emma’s room. He raced out of his bed and into Emma’s bedroom across from his and Snow’s where he found Emma in a heap on her floor, crying.

“Emma! Are you hurt?” He said alarmed, he crouched beside her on the floor and scanned her for any injuries, but he couldn’t see any. “What happened?” He asked her, his eyes swimming with concern.

“I’m fine.” Emma insisted shaking her head and trying to shake the tears from her eyes. “I’m fine go back to bed.”

David could hear her voice giving away the fact she was close to crying and he shook his head. Enough was enough. “No. I’m not going to bed, I’m going to move you back to your bed just in case you’re hurt, then _we_ are going to talk.” He told her firmly. He felt bad as he noticed her wince and a few tears roll down her cheeks as he picked her up, but he was being as gentle as possible.

Once she was on her bed David wrapped a couple of her blankets around her, no matter how warm her room or the house was she always seemed to be shivering. He placed his hand on her cheek to force her to look him in the eye. “This can’t go on like this!” He practically pleaded. “You’re not _eating_ , you’re not _sleeping,_ you barely even _talk_! What’s going on? Tell me, let me know how I can help, Emma _please_.”

Emma was quiet, she knew her parents were affected by what was up with her, but she couldn’t put this on them too, they had enough to deal with Neal being a little toddler. Plus… she wasn’t even sure that they’d believe her. But it was all just too much for her to deal with, especially alone.

“Do you remember when your mom killed Cora and I tried to be gentle with her but you told me we have to give her tough love –“

“-Dad, it’s not-“

“- _because_ _nothing else was helping_. Emma, I don’t know what else I’m meant to do. We have to try and make sure you’re even eating and drinking because otherwise you’re in bed sleeping or just laying here, it can’t go on like this, you’re going to kill yourself.” It killed him saying it but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Emma watched her father’s eyes filling with tears.

“He’s right.” Snow said hoarsely, as though she had spent the night crying as she worried, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Emma looked up and saw Snow stood in the doorway.

David place his hand on Emma’s leg ready to give her more supportive words but he just heard her cry out as though he had stabbed him.

“What? What did I do? Did I hurt you?” He panicked.

Snow raced over to the bed looking just as panicked, Emma was clutching onto her leg, but she was shaking her head in answer to David’s words. Snow carefully rolled up Emma’s pyjama leg but found nothing at all. She didn’t understand, at all, but something was clearly wrong especially judging by Emma’s face. There was something more than pain written on Emma’s face, there was also expectation, waiting for her parents to write off the pain she was clearly in. “Okay, baby, we won’t touch your legs again, we’re sorry.” She gave David a look showing him that it wasn’t his fault.

“Can I hold your hand, kiddo?” David asked carefully, he had no idea what was going on either, but he didn’t want Emma to feel bad if it was a no.

Emma nodded her head slowly and held onto her father’s hand, squeezing it at. “There’s nothing there.” She said slowly, saying what they had all been thinking, she didn’t quite believe that her parents weren’t treating her like she was crazy.

“Nothing we can see.” Snow said. “That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing going on.”

“Does your leg always hurt like that a lot?” David asked her, he didn’t care if she squeezed his hand really hard, he just rubbed his thumb across her knuckles.

“All the time.” Emma admitted. “Both of them.” She swallowed deeply and her mother passed her the bottle of juice from the bedside table. She took it and drank some of it. “It’s worse sometimes, shooting pains, it hurts when they’re touched.” Her voice broke when she admitted the last part.

“Oh baby.” Snow breathed out, her daughter had clearly been dealing with this on her own, she hadn’t thought that she or David would believe her. She carefully wrapped her arms around Emma, and felt her daughter cuddle close to her, David’s hand stroked Emma’s hair while holding her hand with his other one. “We’re going to get this sorted out, I promise you. We’re going to go to the hospital tomorrow and get you checked out and on some stronger painkillers than the ones you’re on.”

Emma frowned and shook her head feeling panicking already. “I can’t. I can’t walk there. Please.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” David soothed. “It’s okay, I’ll carry you to the car, then into the hospital, and we’ll grab one of the hospital wheelchairs, and you don’t have to worry about anything, I promise.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning Snow rang for an emergency appointment at the hospital and got one for Emma two hours later, David followed his promise and carefully carried Emma to the car apologising as she winced and made small noises of pain, they dropped Neal off at Regina’s on the way so that they could just focus on their daughter.

When they parked at the hospital, Snow grabbed one of the wheelchairs and David placed Emma into it, before deciding to take control of it having claimed he was a better driver than Snow.

Emma was already exhausted, she hadn’t done anything but that didn’t matter, it felt as though she had run a marathon but it was just from sitting up in the car. “Can we run up the bumps?” Emma asked David as he pushed her down the corridors looking for the rheumatology department.

“No Emma,” Snow told them both quickly, “David don’t you dare she could fall out and get hurt.”

But David couldn’t resist, he hadn’t seen Emma smile in months so he would take any chance he could, he ran up a couple of the bumps in the corridor and pretended to skid the wheelchair as he found the corridor they had to go down. He looked down and saw Emma smiling, he looked over at Snow with a proud smile on his face, and found Snow could barely keep the smile from her own face.

 

* * *

 

 

Soon they got to the waiting room for the rheumatology department and not long after that Dr Sykes called Emma and her parents inside. The doctor started to examine Emma’s legs, she watched Emma’s feeble attempt at walking, she could barely do it and it was a tiny distance.

David and Snow watched absolutely heartbroken, they had barely seen her out of bed in months, but it was only now that they realised she had been walking incredibly slowly and carefully across the hall to the bathroom. David slid his hand into Snow’s, and gently squeezed it in support, but their eyes didn’t leave their daughter.

The doctor checked Emma’s range of movement in her legs and how flexible she was in her joints including her arms and hands. She gently pressed on different points of Emma’s body to see where it hurt. Emma found herself wincing though out it.

“I was reading your notes and saw you had chronic pain as a teenager, twice, once I assume was during puberty and the other was when you were a teenager still but a few years later, triggered by giving birth.” The doctor said, un-judgmentally, back at her desk with Emma’s file in front of her. “Were you on medicine then?”

“I couldn’t really afford anything more than paracetamol.” Emma admitted with an awkward shrug. She knew that it was different in Storybrooke, there was a free healthcare system in place, Regina had been certain to put one in place to improve on the medieval style one which had been in place in the Enchanted Forest.

“That’s okay. Your doctors have noted throughout your file that you’re very flexible, have you been told that you’re hypermobile before?”

Emma scrunched up her face as she tried to remember. “I think so?”

The doctor smiled gently at the three people in front of her. She listed off some more symptoms: frequent sprains and broken bones, insomnia, easy bruising, dislocations, tripping over lots or seeming like she was clumsy, pain, hernias (Snow and David pointed out that she had been born with an umbilical hernia), fatigue, memory problems, poor circulation, and Emma having trouble regulating her body temperature. Emma nodded her head to most of them, her parents agreed and explained how they had seen them affecting Emma, they were glad to be able to actually know this part instead of feeling useless.  
“Judging from all of your symptoms and the examination I would say that you have Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome, the collagen in your body doesn’t work the same the most other peoples, it’s too flexible, this makes sprains, breaks, and dislocations much more common with this. The severe pain, memory, and body temperature problems are what’s known as fibromyalgia, I’ll give you a leaflet to be able to read about that.”

Emma sat in shock, she had had doctors write off her problems as growing pains and being ‘clumsy’ for so long she had stopped even going,

“There’s no sign of arthritis but we’ll take some bloods just to be sure, we’ll check your vitamin D levels too, often with Ehlers Danlos there’s often their problems absorbing vitamin D which affects mood and energy levels. We’re going to start you on pain tablets, these will change how your body sends pain signals, take one tablet twice a day with food. We’ll also start you going to physiotherapy and hydrotherapy, those will help you get back to your usual range of movement and strengthen your joints, and should help with the pain.” The doctor promised. She smiled warmly at Emma and her parents. “Make sure you rest but try to move about so your joints don’t stiffen up. I’ll give you this to take to the office, they’ll sort out an appointment for here for a month’s time, and they’ll sort out your hydro and physio for between then, once a week. I’ll also give you a prescription for your tablets, start them as soon as possible, it may take a little while for them to work but remember to take them twice a day.”

“I’ll take them.” Snow said accepting them, she kissed Emma’s forehead not caring that Emma usually protested against it in public, she sorted the papers into the order they would need them.

“I know she needs to try move around as much as she can but would it be okay if she used a wheelchair to get around outside of the house?” David asked. “We don’t want this to totally take away any independence.”

Emma watched her dad with surprise, she had definitely never had someone sticking up for her in regards to her health, he was even thinking of things she hadn’t. She smiled gently at him when he looked at her. She wished now that she had had the courage to tell her parents what was wrong sooner.

The doctor agreed as she had seen how little Emma could move. “We’ll be able to give you one if you go to the office and request one.”

“It seems like you have a very good support system around you, that will be very helpful, it was a pleasure to meet you. I’ll see you again next month.”

* * *

 

When Emma and her parents left the hospital, Emma was still in immense pain, but Emma felt her heart lightened – she had never expected her parents or doctor to believe that anything was actually wrong with her, but now she had two diagnosis’ which explained pretty much everything which had been troubling her for all of her life.

Snow and David were relieved that they had gotten to the bottom of what was going on with Emma, they wished they could wave a magic wand to take away all of her pain and struggles, but as they couldn’t do that they would be there to support her relentlessly.

**Author's Note:**

> I suffer from both EDS and Fibromyalgia and this prompt made me think of how it affects me when I'm having a flare up, so I thought that this would be a bit of a twist on it.


End file.
